Rand Paul 2016

By Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 3/8/13

“Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) decision to mount a rare talking filibuster over President Obama’s drone strike policy has — for the moment — propelled the Kentucky lawmaker to the forefront of the 2016 Republican presidential conversation,” writes The Hill’s Alexandra Jaffe.

Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer’s claim that Rand Paul’s filibuster was a work of “political genius" indicates that we have reached the historic turning point and the CPAC 2013 convention will reflect it. That is, the generations have shifted and the influential Krauthammer recognizes that Paul's recent trip to Israel was sincere and enlightened and that Paul came back a different man; one who could be trusted to bring in the new generation. The fight now between Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham of the “old guard” v. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Sarah Palin and Alaska’s Joe Miller (“young bucks”) will clearly turn the way generations always do in history’s generational conflicts: to the rising generation. And they will turn at CPAC 2013.

Rand Paul has turned the tide. He will be the new leader. 

I would recommend to anyone at CPAC 2013 the book “The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy – What the Cycles of History tell us about America’s next Rendezvous with Destiny” by William Strauss and Neil Howe on the rise and fall of political and cultural generations. It well explains the dynamics of generations – the end of time and the beginning of time again, to paraphrase Francis Fukuyama - and we are at that "fourth turning" today; this week - the shift from the end of the post-war period to the beginning of a brand new future.

This is no longer about left v. right, liberals v conservatives, the Ford guys v the Chevy guys. It is about an entirely new America.